The Numbers On Toasters Don't Refer To Minutes After All

There have been a few viral images going round (in fact in our ignorance we shared one of them, sorry!) claiming that the numbers on toasters refer to minutes and not some arbitrary ‘degree of toastiness’. Well, it turns out the information was wrong and the numbers have nothing to do with minutes after all… at least most of the time. This youtuber put 4 common toasters to the test, each on a setting of 2. Check out the results in the video below.

So what do the numbers on toasters actually refer to? Well, unless they are really expensive, apparently toasters have a ‘bi-metallic strip’, which is 2 bits of metal back-to-back. They heat up and expand at different rates, the strip curves and this curving pops the toast. The dial controls how far the strip has to curve before it pops.
Sounds complicated. We’ll stick to degrees of toastiness.